Most of the guys that have shot or hunted with me will say that I love big 30 calibers that will shoot past 2,000 yards, and that is true. Since I have had time to reflect on 2003, I have decided that the best shot I took all year was on a cold cloudy Utah morning, in Ultra steep terrain, with an SR-25 in my hands, chambered for 308 Winchester.

Now I set my personal record in 2003 on deer sized targets, well past 1.3 miles, but on that day I had a 30 Wolf in my hand and very steady winds, and my first shot missed by 15 MOA! elevation was good, but still there is something special about a clean first shot kill in my book,....doing it right the first time, in real difficult conditions, that makes a shot memorable for me.

We drove to 10,000 ft. asl. at 0500, and hiked to 12,800 by 0615, found ourselves sitting atop a very special place called "Box Canyon". This spot would be better named "Mule Deer Heaven" and this is no exageration. Two nights previous, we drove to the base of Box Canyon (8500 ft.)at Midnight and saw over 100 pairs of eyes looking down on us from about 10,000 ft. ASL. My Elcan Blackcat spotted 3 5x5 bucks a good 200 yards higher than the does and about 10 to 20 feet inside the treeline.

Since I had killed my buck the afternoon before, all I had left was a doe tag, and as dawn broke atop Box Canyon, the first thing I saw in the dim light were two young Golden Eagles circling overhead creating a moving shadow that resembled a figure 8. At first I was wondering if I was at the center of their interest, and was quite relieved when I discovered the truth. As most of you know a Golden is a very large and powerful bird, and is a formidable adversary even when it is just one! Seems the sheep herders do not collect all their sheep when they leave in the fall and a few get left behind to provide variety in the Eagle's diet. It is a sight to behold to see these birds hunt together, the first bird went into a stoop and picked up speed quickly, with his talons balled up like fists, he swooped down and punched the sheep knocking her senseless. I was so intrigued with the event, I never saw the second eagle coming. The next bird came down with talons open and clamped on the neck of its prey. The first bird circled back, and it was over in a few minutes, breakfast that is.....

With all the ruckous, I figured the deer would be moving away or holding real tight if they were close. My SR was on a Giles sling, and is very handy for stomping through cover. We started to glass more carefully as the light increased, and noticed some dark spots about 1,200 yards below our position past the beginning of the tree line and what looked like the first terrace of grass without tree cover. We descended quickly, using the trees for concealment, and came to an area where the traversable slope ended and the cliff began. Now near 600 yards, the Vector IV read 34 degrees of inclination. The wind was gusting between 12 and 20 Mph, and I was wishing the Wolf had not spoiled me so bad. No Wolf, Just a little 308, big inclination, big wind, and no prone position available. Gotta do this one sitting! For a guy who had planned on busting brush and snap shooting a doe, my mind sure did not want to shift gears, maybe is was those gusts that knocked me off balance?

I found a rock to rest the bi-pod on, I needed the height from sitting on a 60 degree slope. The Vector said 585 yards and 34 degrees incline, and my brain said 7 MOA left windage, one MOA of vertical component. She was facing left when the bullet entered her chest cavity, taking 1/2 inch of the rear of her shoulder bone off. The mulie doe collapsed in her tracks, tried to scoot towards the creek, and made it about 4 ft. before she breathed her last breath.

The SR-25 is what I trained on as a young shooter, and it almost seemed like going home to hunt with it again last year. Some training you never forget, and sometimes home is a great place to be. On this blustery cold day, Box Canyon with a .308 was a great place to be.

Truth and Objectivity are Mutually Inclusive

Cool story! Congrats!

Payed to know that rifle! Damn did it ever.

The Eagles, that must a been a sight!

A 2800ft ascent in an hour, my God am I out a shape! Oh am I achin thinking about that one.

I had gone early to the cabin which was at 9,300 ft. ASL. We worked cutting wood, fixing the generator and water resevoir for 3 days. Snuck in a little trout fishing and muskrat patrol before elk season started. In Utah they have a 3 day break between Elk season and Mule deer season, so I had almost 2 weeks to acclimate. I was with this youngster named Rick who lived at 6,000 ft., and was in great shape. Following him had me suckin air like an SR-71! It was really a cool place to hunt, never seen so much water at altitude. The Eagles were spectacular. The two I saw kill were part of a family of 4 that nested on the next peak over. I got within about 100 yards of their nest while climbing earlier in the week. The mother was HUGE! I would have to say possibly a 9 foot wing span, she looked like a friggin Taradactal in flight!

Truth and Objectivity are Mutually Inclusive

In 2003 - oh - I shot some good groups, killed a bunch of prarie dogs and other varmints. Killed three whitetails from 12 (with a bow) to 400 yards (rifle). That bow buck was a really nice 10 pointer.

But my most memorable shot was no big deal, only an interesting set of conditions...

Just a steel target, using the R2 calibrated to my load... 900 yards in a snowstorm with switching 10-25 mph full-value winds - waited a few seconds for the snow to indicate a relative lull in those horrible conditions, held for 3 minutes of wind and hit about 5 inches right and 2 inches low of center.

It just felt really good, you know?

And it looked pretty good to me, too. Nice shooting.

Len Backus

After the third day of our Sept 03 Caribou hunt with Ungava Adventures, I was starting to become concerned about not seeing a nice bull to take back to my taxidermist. My oldest son and I had booked this hunt three years prior and had been practicing with our rifles every weekend throughout the summer on groundhogs. We both shoot Rem. 700's in 7mm Mag but I prefer the 175gr bullet and Scott likes the 154 gr. I have my rifle topped with a 3.5 X10x44mc Zeiss Conquest with mil dot reticle . We both shoot this type of scope and prefer that reticle for the ability to use it not just to range with but for hold over and windage. During the summer groundhog sessions, one of us would shoot and the other would spot the shot because we were shooting at ranges from 450 to 700 yds and we becoming pretty good at using the mildots. At no time shooting in Pennsylvania did the wind treat us like it did during this hunt. 18mph winds were about normal mixed with rain and gusts to 35mph were not uncommon. We both agreed, it was a good thing that we had drop and wind charts made out in mils set up for each gun. Goretex clothing and rubber boots was the everyday attire. The guides were experienced and friendly and we had already made numerous new friends on the plane flight into camp. Each night our new friends had stories to tell of the caribou that they shot during the day. Some hunters had already limited out with their two caribou but I was still looking. Sure we had seen numerous bulls already but nothing like the ones you see in the hunting videos. Today our guides would take us upriver. Hopefully the new spot would spell sucess. The guide dropped us off and made chit-chat for awhile before he continued on upstream to position another hunter. The boat wasn't even out of sight before the caribou started to appear. I was using my Leica 10x42BN binoculars to spot with when I noticed a really nice bull about 800yds away but I knew instantly that this was a bull for me. Thanks to the clarity of the binoculars, there was no guesswork concerning his tops or shovels. We hurriedly placed our backpack on the rocks we were sitting beside to make a rest for my gun. The caribou was actually coming closer to us and it was closing ground fast. During this time, we were talking about the wind drift and how fast he was walking to come up with the lead factor. Hoping that he would stop and then we only would have wind and distance to deal with. He stopped for a moment at 518 yds but only long enough for me to get the sight picture of three mils for drop and two for wind. At 476 yds, ranged with a laser rangefinder, he stopped just below a rock outcropping. I asked my son if he was ready and he said whenever you are. I touched the shot off and the bull fell in his tracks. One shot at 476 yds and my day became another memory for me to cherish. I was anxious for my son to shoot now, but that is another story.

Long Range is a matter of opinion..Accurate shooting is not

Nice shot, Congrats!!

Good story, now your sons too, please.

That is some serious shooting, on a mover at that range, nice going spark!

Truth and Objectivity are Mutually Inclusive

S1
I would like to take credit for the moving shot but he stopped before I touched the trigger. Thanks for the kind words. My son's was the mover. I'll see if I can get him to post it.

Long Range is a matter of opinion..Accurate shooting is not

Being real new to LR hunting, I had been trying to break the 400 mark for some time now.
Last Spring I got to do that with my 308 VLS.
I took a groundhog at 522 yards. The first shot was deflected by the wind which was about 1 mil.
Held off 1 mil on the 2nd shot and connected.
Shortly after, I connected on one at 486 and then a 3rd at 389.
I was using a Speer 168gr Match bullet over a slooooow load of IMR 4350.
I've attached a target shot with this load. The first 2 shots were cleanbore sighters.
I'm hooked...

The other photo is a group shot with my VS 22-250 using 55gr Starke red Prairie bullets. It started to get windy.
I had wind flags set up at 100 yard intervals out to 400 yards. It was amazing what the wind was doing all at once at each flag. Fishtailing pretty bad at times.
The bull is a 3" spraypainted circle using a masking tape roll as a stencil.

Skinny.....Nice shooting, looks like that 308 will put them all in one hole! Welcome to the board.

Truth and Objectivity are Mutually Inclusive

One would think that Brent, Crow Mag, Ian, and Dave, shot something in 2003????? Surely you guys have had enough time to reflect on your past year of ballistic adventurism?

Truth and Objectivity are Mutually Inclusive

Ever since I was a little kid, I have always been filled with the dream of someday taking off into the mountains. I wanted to spend a few days camping out and spend all of my time hunting some type of big game. I recently got the chance for my dreams to come true, and my game of choice was Black Bear.

I’ve spent the better part of the last year working on getting a rifle shooting well. If the only shot I got was across the canyon, I didn’t want to have to pass it up. So I read all I could find on shooting long range, then put everything into practice here at home. With the bullet and load I finally settled on, I was ready for a shot out to 800 yards, in a moderate wind.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been spending all of my time finding new access roads into the unit I was to hunt.

For the last month, I’ve been dragging the kids and wife out scouring the mountains for bear sign and food that bears will eat.

The food selection this year is really down, we never got the rains this summer that we so desperately need here in the desert. Juniper berries were few and far between, manzanita was only a little more frequently found. Most of the bear poop I found was thick with Prickly pear fruit, and mixed with a few mesquite beans. So I headed to areas with plenty of prickly pear. Narrowed my search down to a couple of locations, then spent last weekend out walking with the kids and the wife in these areas.

I settled on a beautiful valley with prickly pears growing on the hillsides, large shady trees growing in the wash running down the center and a stock tank with water less than a half a mile away. My scouting had told me that at least two grown bears were spending most of their time in this area.

Thursday night, I took off of work early; the truck was already loaded up with everything but the coolers, so I threw them in and headed out the door. Telling my family not to expect me home until after dark on Sunday night. For the past week, my stomach tore me apart, I was so nervous and excited about my chance to finally get out and make this hunt. I got into my chosen camping area and got things set up with a half an hour of daylight to spare, so I took a little walk and chose a hillside to sit and glass from in the morning.

Friday morning finally came and I was up and ready to go ten minutes before it was light enough to see the ground. There was also and evil breeze blowing that was going to carry my scent from the hill I planned to hunt right over the valley I expected to see bears in. So I made a quick change in plans, and walked a short half a mile to another hillside. Set out my JS512 caller and backed up to a bush. I glassed for a little while, and then hit the start button on the remote.

My Mother would probably tell you that it’s not a bad fault to have. But unfortunately, I have a hard time lying to someone when asked a direct question. Mix that in with some people too lazy to do their own scouting, instead relying on others to find sign and tell them about it, and you end of with a disaster and some real pissed off feelings.

Three minutes into my tape, I hear a vehicle coming. I stopped the tape and watched another hunter pass right past me hell bent for election. As he fades out of hearing, I can hear hounds making their way over a ridge a mile or more to the East.

The wind had stopped blowing by this time, so I picked up my things and went back to the area I had originally wasted to hunt from. There is a little dim road than runs though the area, that is easy to miss if you are standing in it, so I though I might be safe there.

I got set up and settled in and watched for about 30 minutes when a bear made his way up out of the wash and started working his way along the prickly pears. Nipping at a fruit here and there, sniffing at those not quite ripe. I settled the crosshairs on him, in easy range, just over two hundred yards out. But held my fire, he was still walking in my direction, and better than that, he was heading for the little dim road, that I thought I might be able to drive my truck down.

At 125 yards, he stopped to check out a prickly pear while standing in the road, and my 175 Nosler partition hit him hard just behind the shoulder. He spun and thrashed for a second them fell into the wash just off the edge of the road and all sound stopped.

It was like the World just stopped and time stopped with it. I wanted to wait a full fifteen minutes before getting up and walking to him. I did manage to make it a full five minutes before taking my eyes off of the wash and looking for my brass. Never did find the brass and I could wait any longer.

I made my way down to the road and over to the edge of the wash and there he lay, not fifty feet from the dim road. Mostly all down hill. I bet people could hear my war whoop in seven zip codes! I went back to camp, took off the hot camo clothes and picked up the truck and ropes.

It took me about an hour using ropes, three sheave block and tackle and a lot of sweat to get him up the hill and into the truck. As I was coiling up the ropes, I could hear some hounds making their way up the far side of the wash, I saw one and called to it. That was a mistake. He came right to me, and then got a nose full of bear in the back of the truck and all of his buddies came to honor his “tree” on the back of my truck. They started following me as I drove back to camp. I saw the dog’s owner come over the ridge when I was a couple of hundred yards from camp. Talked to him for a few minutes and he said his dogs had fought a bear twice on the ground, and it had broke and run up that valley. I was so busy loading my own bear, and that wash is so thick, I never saw or heard a thing.

He gathered up his dogs and pulled them back up the wash hoping to put them back on trail, and I went back to camp and started tearing things back down.

I ended up bringing all of my food back to the house with me. I’m not a Breakfast person and never took the first bite of anything I brought.

I made a stop at the gravel pit to weigh the bear on the way home, 320 Pounds! My three day camping trip may have come up a little short, I was home by 10 AM on my first day, but you can’t beat the fun I had!

Uh, what the hell did I kill in 2003. Started with some hogs and a couple of turkeys in Texas. Probably the nastiest kills I made and some of the most difficult, were what I called "bank-shots" off the heads of snapping turtles with a super accurate little T/C Benchmark .22LR rifle topped with a 6-24 Swarvoski scope.

Deal was there was a severe drought going on and the stock damns were drying up (NW of Abilene). This really congregated the snappers and a couple of other types of turtles into ponds that had water. Unfortunately those ponds had the last of the bass also and the turtles were eating up all the bass. The ranch mangager wanted the turtles thinned down - as in WAY-down.

I set up a Stoney Point bipod and the turkey guide who was along started filling clips. The turtles sort of treaded water with just their heads and necks out, very tiny targets since the ponds ranged from 90-110 yards long. There would be a pretty good splat with water flying up, freguently the turtle sank or splashed a bit then sank. We are talking in the friggin hundreds of turtles per pond here, not just a few. Target rich environment of the first order and I had a lot of ammo - plus a case of .17 Hornady Rimfires and a brand new T/C G2 rifle as a backup.

After a lot of mayhem, I found out that if I shot from a low angle, the little long rifle would richote off the turtle's head and smack the back bank, without any splash of water at the turtle's location. This was a hell of a tuff shooting challenge but I got so I could call the shots with that deadly little Benchmark. The guide never shot one round, he was having too much fun watching and did not mind loading mags. We hunted turkeys at dawn, turtles during the heat of the day and pigs at evening - it was a hell of tuff job but I suffered through it.

Had more fun on the turtles than the turkeys, hogs were pretty good tho since we were testing new bullets at extreme range for muzzleloaders. One exciting moment was the afternoon I was by myself on turtle duty, setup in a big rockpile. Not a good idea. Was sitting on a little aluminum stool and had this weird feeling. Looked down to my right and there was a freeking snake about as long as a hockey stick - and he was only a few feet away and coming straight at me. I had the bipod leg right in front of him, figured I's smack him with it if I needed to, got up quickly and moved downslope. That big sucker went right under the aluminum stool and continued on his way. No idea what in hell it was, pretty sure it wasn't a rattler but he was big, at least in my books he was. I moved off the rockpile and continued the turtle wars, saw a rattler that afternoon and he made lots of noise.

How many turtles bit the dust over the three days - nasty, just nasty.

Another good shot was on a mule deer doe across a big canyon - looked a hell of a long ways but lasered 550. I dialed it and put on a bunch of wind and it dumped stone dead. 150 Interbond. When we got around to it, the damn thing was a late fawn and it was about the size of a coyote. It was not a big target. Also called wind and elevation on a bunch of kills for my partners - we got the 5-600 yard kills down real good with our .308's. We were partipating in a CWD cull, pretty much shoot as many deer as you could. We did nearly 40 in 4 1/2 hunting days - great way to test bullets. Meat was all salvaged, heads went to the DNR for testing.

Tim... cool story, did the 175 leave an exit wound on your bear? I'm also curious what angle the bullet entered the bear from.



Ian....Do you save the meat until you get the test results back? I have a friend with a duck club that loves to cull turtles and other things that prey on the nests of ducks. He makes quite the event out of it, calls it "Turtle Vision". He says it is the funnest thing you'll ever do, that whole turtle patrol thing.

Truth and Objectivity are Mutually Inclusive

Best shooting worst timeing!Had a doe come out of the woods 75 yards away at a flat out run but broadside so the Winchester started barking.Next thing I know the gun is MT and she is still boggein over the hill.Then wouldnt you know it a nice ten point and another doe come out closer and a lot slower,gloves on and shells in boxes in three different pockets.Ditch the right glove ,get a shell in the chamber(only time for one shot....gota make it good)At the shot(175yards)the buck lunges sideways.
About this time the nephew(his first shot at a deer)shoots in the woods so I go down to see how he did.Got himself a nice little 6 point at point plank,I mean there where powder burns.I show him how to gut a deer and he takes the preferbial? bite outa the heart(my hero).We drag it back to camp.
Everyone was back at camp so I stand where I took the shots and send everyone out to where I last saw both deer.It is confirmed I got a deer.Big time chest pounding...I knew I got the buck.When I got there,there was a problem...No Horns WTF.Gutting the doe I started feeling better as 4 out of the 5 had hit her and the Copper solids realy made a mess.1st one hit her at 75 yards and the last one hit her at 175yards,not bad for a 12ga.
20 -20 hindsite,the buck lunged sideways because he saw the doe flopping at the same I shot....not because I hit him
Saw the same buck after the 1st of the year while coyote hunting so maybe next year?

I was after Black Bear this spring and went up 1500-2000 ft. or so after one we saw hanging out near his den to see if I couldn't get a shot at him from across the canyon. We hicked up about 600 yards below him and just couldn't spot him from the bottom, as he was setting up just over the top in the rocks. My rangefinder began reading at about 550 yards or so, which was really odd It didn't at 600. The wind was probably stirring up dust up through the canyon and screwing with it some I figure.

We hiked up the middle then off up the left side down wind to find a spot to shoot from when we got him in view over the top up on the right side. The wind was really blowing steady pretty strong, it was about 20mph if I remember right.

We found a nice giant rock to get up and rest on and found the range and dope ahead of time. We waited for oh, 20 minutes or so and finally spotted him in the trees just below his den. He made his way up to the rocks where we'd been watching a good size Ram move toward from the right the last few minutes, we figured he had to be right there somewhere and it was strange the Sheep was practically on top of where he should have been located. Well, the two practically stepped on each other coming around a rock, face to face! They both turned and ran like lightning struck 'em both! The Bear shot over the top of the ridge to the right, the Ram booked off up the mountain to the left past his den. The Bear was back in about 15 minutes or so and walked down to a spot where he stopped near the top of the rocks where I ranged him at 450 yards, or something like that.

The Bear disappeared in a couple steps. We couldn't see the den entrance but it was right there where he stopped, then vanished.

We sat there glassing around at Sheep and getting Russel's rifle dialed in, in the event he needed to shoot if I missed while we waited for him to come back out in the sun and stretch his legs again. About 45 minutes later he popped out and walked about 10 yards quartering away at 2 o'clock, and paused before he headed up over the rocky ridge top.

My 300 Ultra barked and he bolted like lightning up over the top and down the other side out of sight! Russel got TWO shots off with his 338 WM while the Bear was at a dead run, but no dice.

After a little head scratchin and wondering if we even hit the Bear, we shot a several sighters into the sandy slide next to the den. I hit a soccer ball size rock every damn shot with the same 2 MOA wind dialed in??? Russel was hitting just over the top an inch or two.

Well, he never returned after an hour or so, so we went down and up the other side where we found NO blood at all where he stood for the shot. No blood on the path he took as Russel fired on him either.

Over the ridge top was another little valley 150 yards or so to the other side, not real deep. I could barely make out something black in the thick alder near the top of the other side, stump, shadow, Bear??? We went down to get a better angle to look into the alders off a big rock about 100 yards away. I could clearly see fur, an ear and a muzzle through the NF on 22 power now. Russel had a look and passed the rifle back to me. After firing the sighter shots a half an hour ago, I only had ONE round left, and one chance if he WASN'T over there DEAD already.

I looked back through the scope to try and determine if he was still alive or what. That was a quick and easy determination, as he was already UP and facing away from me up the hill. I fired my last 178gr A-Max in between his shoulder blades, he folded and down the hill he rolled with a nice big blood trail in the snow.

Upon close examination when we skinned him out, the only hole was the one that went through the spine and out the throat with the golfball size exit hole. We seemingly just lucked out that he pilled up in the alders for a nap after all the disruption he'd been experiencing near his den that afternoon.

Not a big bear, and the chest is reallu pretty small target on one under all that hair, so I could have shot over him but still burned two inches or more of hair! Hide's still in the freezer and needs to be fleshed out, still might find I grazed him when I get around to that yet.

My Moose this year was nearly the same too, missed my offhand shot at nearly 200 yards with the first round, sank a 200gr Accubond in him on the second. Poor shot execution was the fault here, I know for a fact. Later on at the range, my 200 yards offhand ability was probably 6-7 MOA, far from the 1-2 MOA it seemed at the time with crosshairs on a big Moose. The bullet broke the on side shoulder and stopped under the hide on the off side just behind the shoulder. Lungs were mush, and he spun around his broken shoulder and augered into the swamp right where he stood.

Took me a few hours and him and my gear were pilled in my 6-wheeler for the trip back home.

By yourself, trying to load 1/2 of a two year old a moose at a time into the bed of my wheeler 3 feet off the ground boardered on pure insanity for a guy my size, 165 lbs soaken wet. Oh it was HOT out that day!

So, my best shots this year..... They SUCKED!! Nothin I'm proud of...

S1,

He was barely quartering away from me. Almost a 90 degree shot, but not quite. It wasn't until after I shot, that I remembered everyone telling me I was supposed to shoot a bear in the shoulder. Out of habit, I shot him right behind the shoulder. Fortunately, the bear didn't know I shot him in the wrong place and was dead a few seconds later.

No exit at all. Which made me happy. I wanted him for a rug, and no exit means less sewing.